Issues: I know we all have them, but GeeZ!!!

So...I'm having a little trouble.  I'm strong. I help people. I am a friend's friend. I'm always there when someone needs me. I go out of my way to be there for someone. I can't say no. I find it so hard to care about any guys, even if I want to. I over-look things that should never be over-looked. When something bad happens, I tend to turn the other cheek. **Sometimes, being too strong is being weak** Yeah. I don't have a very healthy way of thinking. But how do I change it? Everything in the world that I do always seems to just revert back to losing my parents. Why? Why didn't I just deal with that 11 years ago? Why can't I be normal? I don't want a single person to 'feel sorry' for me. I don't want hand-outs. I don't want help. I can do anything by myself. Yeah. No. I can't. You really have no idea what I go through on a daily basis for the sole reason that I don't let people in. Sometimes, its ok. But I don't want to. I would be vulnerable, an easy target. I don't cry. I'm never mad. It's hard to hurt my feelings. Its really not...but I seem to like you to think that's how it is.

All I want is for one person to want to crawl into the innermost parts of my heart and live there for a little while. And if that doesn't scare you off or leave you with the impression that I'm absolutely insane, then you will be perfect for me. 

I want to get to that place where I know that its ok to receive instead of give give give. I want to feel like I'm not a failure for saying no. I don't want you to feel like you need me just so that I will feel wanted. I want to show you the tears in my eyes for just once instead of feeling like I'm not accepted to you without a smile. I was told once that I hurt some guy's feelings because I slept with him and that's all he was to me. I used to like him a lot! I wanted him to be closer to me a few years ago. But as soon as I got the chance I turned the game. I let his feelings be the ones that were on the table. Not mine. It's a wall. A wall I'm not willing to have broken down by anyone other than myself. A defense mechanism. I run. I'm not proud of that. But that's what I do. 

Don't get me wrong. I do have quite an amazing life. I'm so content in everything materialistic. I have a good job. My family is hilarious. I have food to eat and a place to put my head at night. And for all of that I'm so grateful. 

But I'm so sick of the act.

Something bad happens in my life, I pretend that it never happened. I don't deal with it. I was in a relationship for 5 years almost. I see him now and it's almost as though I don't know him. I never knew him. 

I lost my parents in the one most horrible month of my life. It hurts me. I feel completely lost and fragile even now, 11 years later. But I talk about it now as though it never happened to me, like it is nothing more than a story. It does hurt. It's hard. 

I know its 100% ok to be sad. I know you can be hurt, angry, upset, etc. But there's something inside me that won't let that happen. 

"The key thing is that life events good and bad do shape happiness over long periods," Oswald said. "We are, in part, the product of our experiences. It's not all born into us."